What's up with Chief of War?

I'll be posting about this limited series about the fight to unify the Hawaiian Islands, premiering on August 1, with an eye on its historical accuracy. 

For starters, here are couple of historical "issues," based on what we know about "Chief of War" to date:

First, the By choosing the war chief Ka'iana (played by Jason Momoa) as the series' hero and main character, Momoa and his series co-writer Thomas Pa'a Sibbett have turned history upside down. Ka'iana did not lead the fight to unify the Islands; Kamehameha did. Ka'iana was an instrumental ally of Kamehameha's, but ultimately a disloyal one. Ka'iana's story is a sidebar to the much grander story of Kamehameha's struggle to first unify the island of his birth, Hawai'i Island (the Big Island), and then extend his rule to the rest of the Hawaiian archipelago.

Second, Apple TV+ initially teased "Chief of War" as the story of a "bloody campaign" to unify the Hawaiian Islands in the face of an "imminent threat of colonization." "Chief of War's" publicists rephrased the Islands' peril as an undefined "existential threat." But the "colonization" angle stuck and has become widespread on the internet. A Google search for "Chief of War colonization" quickly turns up more than a dozen such characterizations of the series' storyline. 

In fact, Hawaiians were not threatened with colonization in the late 18th century, when the events of "Chief of War" take place. Increasing numbers of mostly white foreigners, haole, visited Hawaii in the years after Capt. James Cook "discovered" the Islands in 1778-79. But they came as explorers, adventurers, and traders; not colonizers.

Moreover, still isolated from world events near the end of the 18th century, Hawaiians wouldn't have known about European nations' colonization of indigenous peoples halfway around the world, in Africa and on the Indian subcontinent. (Nor would they have known of white Americans' ongoing forcible displacement of native Americans.) 

 

To suggest that the fight to unify the Hawaiian Islands was about staving off threatened colonization is a reflection of a 20th-21st century haole point of view, and not 18th century Hawaiians' point of view.  

"Chief of War's" creators are touting it as a story told from the Hawaiians' viewpoint. It won't be, not entirely, if the word "colonization" comes out of any of its Hawaiian characters' mouths.